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Nano-Brewery

I am a former nano-brewery turned micro brewery about a year ago. And since then I have noticed the phrase nano brewery pop up a lot on this forum, in magazines, and on the web. So I am just curious, how many of you out there that read this forum, contribute to this forum, etc would consider yourself a nano-brewery (less that 2 bbls) and what state are you in?

Just an informal survey to see if the nano-craze is getting as big as I feel it is...

Hi Joel! I'm a nano. I run a 1 bbl brewhouse and have been in business for just about 2 years. There's a bunch of us around, but not an army. From what I've seen, I know of around a dozen nanos persistently operating out there and probably about twice that in planning/dream stages that might get off the ground. Or might not. Check out Hess Brewing's website. They're trying to keep a running list.

I am curious how many times you have to brew in a week to make a nanobrewery profitable, or to cover costs?

For Healdsburg Beer Company, how has business been for you for the past 2 years (how much do you brew in a year?), and how do you distribute your beer (bottles, growlers, kegs?). Is a nanobrewery sustainable? Can one make a profit?

I run a nano brewery as my night/weekend/side job (passion project?), Mattingly Brewing Company.
Anyway, we have steam fired soup kettles for the brewhouse which can yield up to 1.5bbls per knockout, however our cellar is made up of four Blackstone Ventures 4bbl unitanks, one of which I have outfitted as a BBT. We brew three times to over fill a tank and can yield about 4.35bbls.
We did 145bbls last year (our first full year), but we didn't always brew full batches, sometimes we will just brew 20-30 gallons and knock out into homebrew buckets. We have a weekly Wednesday tapping where we release a new beer each week and have put out about 75 so far.

Future little guy

For what it's worth, I'm past the planning stages and now raising money to open a 2bbl brewpub. It's in a town with a population of about 6500 and the people are ready for us to open. We felt 2bbls is the right compromise between size and cost.

Howdy. Business has been good. I sell everything I make and pretty much have it all allocated prior to release. I'm self distributing in 1/6 bbl kegs to the local market. My brewery is self sustainable and makes a small profit, but my production is pretty well limited by the fact that I have a day job. If I was trying to do this full time I'd need to modify my business plan a lot.

Nano

Joel,

My list is not comprehensive or necessarily accurate but it's a good way to keep tabs on whats going on in the world of nanobrewing.

Anywho, we are just about to ready to start brewing. *crosses fingers* Our 1.66 BBL system is 100% custom fabricated and we should be ready to run some water through it by the end of the week for testing.

I would like to have a tasting area, but we are having some difficulties with that at the moment. DEH!!!

in 2008, we opened our brewpub on Main St. in Windham NY. We're a single barrel brewpub using Blichmann kettles and fermenters. We don't do anything any differently than all-grain homebrewers do with home draft systems. We're brewing nearly 300 bbls annually and have 12 of our own beers on draft. Our beers are great but like many brewpubs, the food accounts for well over half of our sales.
Google "Cave Mountain Brewing" and check out our reviews. We're #1 on Tripadvisor for Windham NY restaurants, and our beers have great reviews too (pubcrawler, beeradvocate, ratebeer). Last fall we won "Best Brewery" in a New York State microbrew festival in Hunter NY alongside breweries 50 times our size. We get to participate and compete in prestigious brewing festivals often alongside national breweries with huge marketing budgets.
Brewing dreams do come true on any budget. Ours did!!!

That is an awesome story, and I hope to be on The Great Nonobrewery List at some point. I'm designing a system I call the Bluto 555 (the Most Versatile Nanobrewery System Ever!!!) and am working on a plan for a nanobrewery called Southern Farmhouse Ales. Sometimes I wish I was already up and running, but building the system has been fun too. For me, just to be licensed and producing <100 bbls per year would be a good place to be.